World Families Forums - So who were the first farmers in NW Europe?

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Who would now be considered the remants of the first farmers in places like Ireland and Britain in term of yDNA? If R1b is copper age and I clades tend to be interpreted as Mesolithic a lot of the time then it doesnt appear to leave much.

As far as I know I-M26 is early to late Neolithic in many places in Western Europe, and its presence in Treilles,France 3000BC confirms it.

The presence of G-P15+ folks in Avellaner, Catalonia 5000 BC, then Treilles, France 3000 BC, and also in G2a3 in 5000 BC Germany, would lead me to think that first farmers in NW Europe were likely G-P15+ folks.

Who would now be considered the remants of the first farmers in places like Ireland and Britain in term of yDNA? If R1b is copper age and I clades tend to be interpreted as Mesolithic a lot of the time then it doesnt appear to leave much.

I enjoyed my tour of Ceide Fields a few years ago.Ceide Fields claim a farming existance some 6000 years ago. What European haplo groups were in existance back then?

Who would now be considered the remants of the first farmers in places like Ireland and Britain in term of yDNA? If R1b is copper age and I clades tend to be interpreted as Mesolithic a lot of the time then it doesnt appear to leave much.

Who would now be considered the remants of the first farmers in places like Ireland and Britain in term of yDNA? If R1b is copper age and I clades tend to be interpreted as Mesolithic a lot of the time then it doesnt appear to leave much.

Wasn't Ötzi copper-age?

Yes, he was, but G2a has shown up at Neolithic sites at Treilles in France, Derenburg in Germany, and at the Avellaner Cave in Catalonia.

I have begun reading: Cunliffes "Europe between the Oceans, 9000BC - AD1000". It is pretty interesting reading. He is an archaeologist, ret. from Oxford. He has some interesting opinions: 1. Paleolithic man's descendants are the principal antecedents to those who live in Europe today. 2. He discounts current thinking on the Kurgans and Beaker folks.(see page 19 of his first chapter). He does admit to a smaller component of the population contributed by incomers from south-western Asia in the Neolithic.

My opinion is that R1b originated in Western Africa and probably prior to the last Ice Age migrated north into Europe. R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years. The environmental changes (see Milankovitch cycles in Wikipedia) since that time have redistributed R1b into Asia and back again and there have been major North South migrations several times until the climate settled down about 9K years ago.

I have begun reading: Cunliffes "Europe between the Oceans, 9000BC - AD1000". It is pretty interesting reading. He is an archaeologist, ret. from Oxford. He has some interesting opinions: 1. Paleolithic man's descendants are the principal antecedents to those who live in Europe today. 2. He discounts current thinking on the Kurgans and Beaker folks.(see page 19 of his first chapter). He does admit to a smaller component of the population contributed by incomers from south-western Asia in the Neolithic.

My opinion is that R1b originated in Western Africa and probably prior to the last Ice Age migrated north into Europe. R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years. The environmental changes (see Milankovitch cycles in Wikipedia) since that time have redistributed R1b into Asia and back again and there have been major North South migrations several times until the climate settled down about 9K years ago.

BTW, the shape of my head is oval; I am Z253+ and Ysearch z5hg3

That book is dated in terms of the genetic information Cunliffe had to work with. At the time, the received version was that R1b spent the LGM in the Franco-Cantabrian Ice Age Refuge and was Cro-Magnon.

It is extremely unlikely that R1b originated in western Africa, given that its closest genetic cousins (the Super K Family) are concentrated in Asia. The oldest R1b is not in western Africa, either. It's in Asia.

By the way, I believe most head shapes are actually more or less oval. The degree of brachycephaly, dolichocephaly, or mesocephaly is determined by comparing the maximum width of the skull to its maximum length.

Quote

Cephalic index is the ratio of the maximum width of the head multiplied by 100 divided by its maximum length (i.e., in the horizontal plane, or front to back).

1. CRANIAL INDEX: Use the spreading caliper. Measure the maximum breadth of the skull from Euryon (eu) to Euryon (eu). Measure the length of the skull from Glabella (g) to Opisthocranion (op). Divide the cranial breadth by the cranial length and multiply by 100. (See LANDMARKS.)

1. CRANIAL INDEX: Use the spreading caliper. Measure the maximum breadth of the skull from Euryon (eu) to Euryon (eu). Measure the length of the skull from Glabella (g) to Opisthocranion (op). Divide the cranial breadth by the cranial length and multiply by 100. (See LANDMARKS.)

There is a pretty neat image on the right side of this article that shows how the various metrics of a skull are taken. You can enlarge the image by clicking on it.

I have begun reading: Cunliffes "Europe between the Oceans, 9000BC - AD1000". It is pretty interesting reading. He is an archaeologist, ret. from Oxford. He has some interesting opinions: 1. Paleolithic man's descendants are the principal antecedents to those who live in Europe today. 2. He discounts current thinking on the Kurgans and Beaker folks.(see page 19 of his first chapter). He does admit to a smaller component of the population contributed by incomers from south-western Asia in the Neolithic.

My opinion is that R1b originated in Western Africa and probably prior to the last Ice Age migrated north into Europe. R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years. The environmental changes (see Milankovitch cycles in Wikipedia) since that time have redistributed R1b into Asia and back again and there have been major North South migrations several times until the climate settled down about 9K years ago.

BTW, the shape of my head is oval; I am Z253+ and Ysearch z5hg3

That book is dated in terms of the genetic information Cunliffe had to work with. At the time, the received version was that R1b spent the LGM in the Franco-Cantabrian Ice Age Refuge and was Cro-Magnon.

It is extremely unlikely that R1b originated in western Africa, given that its closest genetic cousins (the Super K Family) are concentrated in Asia. The oldest R1b is not in western Africa, either. It's in Asia.

I don't believe that Cunliffe believes some of the "current genetic info". Last year, if I recall, The Iberian refugia concept was dead?

I think the point is that Geography and Climatic conditions are his big "drivers". It wouldn't surprise me that there is a concentration of R1b in Asia, but I think they got there from Europe? Possibly between the last two ice ages. I don't think parts of Asia ever received the population diminution that Europe had due to the Ice Age and the great flood. Given the above scenario we might expect that R1b would be dominant in Asia, and I don't believe that assertion can be made.

One of the occasional contributors to rootsweb - archives told me in no uncertain terms that my haplotype was Asian, not European and suggested that I probably was the result of the roman guards that bordered scotland. I have since been found to have R- L21/Z253+ SNP's and I believe that would dispute the gentlemens assertion.

My major point is that we cannot use current distributions of Haplotypes/groups to tell us points of origin. So how do we make sense of the data we have? I simply believe it has to be logical, logical in the sense that if R1b is the dominant Hg in Europe now, it must have had a toehold here to get started. Further, I don't buy the mass execution theme either. Why would it have happened. I think one of the current threads discusses the coexistence of HFG with the incoming farmers and the apparent peaceful relationship that might have existed? We are dealing with a lot of time here and many environmental changes; we have to look for better ways to explain what we observe. JMHO.

We are forced to use the current distributions of y haplogroups and their variance, at least to some extent, to try to ferret out their points of origin. Does it seem likely to you that, despite the fact that all of R1b's Super K family cousins are found together in Asia, especially the closest cousins, like N, Q, R1a, and R2, that a branch of R1 wandered separately all the way over to western Africa before giving rise to R1b?

Besides that, no ancient dna discoveries to date support the notion that R1b was in Europe before the late Neolithic or Copper Age.

I know we don't have a huge number of aDNA y-dna results yet, but it seems odd that R1b hasn't turned up in anything earlier than the Bell Beaker remains from Kromsdorf, Germany, circa 2600-2500 BC. Plenty of G2a, some I2a, some E1b1b, some F*, but no R1b.

Maybe it will turn up in a Cro-Magnon skeleton tomorrow, but one would think that, if R1b has been in Europe for the last 40k years, it would have popped up in one of those skeletons from Treilles or Avellaner or Derenburg.

I wonder, if we did not have recorded history, if some folks would be arguing that R1b must have been in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand for the last 40k years to have achieved such dominance in those places. Why, surely it must have been the first y haplogroup across the Bering Strait!

I wonder, if we did not have recorded history, if some folks would be arguing that R1b must have been in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand for the last 40k years to have achieved such dominance in those places. Why, surely it must have been the first y haplogroup across the Bering Strait![/quote]

I sense a touch of sarcasm, but this is my point!! As far as I can understand, we cannot extract geographical info from DNA? I understand the concept of relative variance,I admit it does give us a snapshot in time of an existing set of haplotypes, and maybe it is all we have to work with. That said, early history is one succession of population movements due to environmental and food supply changes.

To be specific to the question posed by this subject, I would probably opt for R1b as the first farmers. The better question is who taught them how to farm? Was it a natural extension from the HFG stage? Was it brought by a new culture. Did the significant improvement in climate and a wandering shaman relating how people lived in the East bring agriculture? The whole ethos of early americans centers around traveling traders, why not the same in Europe?

R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years . . .

My major point is that we cannot use current distributions of Haplotypes/groups to tell us points of origin.

Do you see the contradiction in the two statements above?

My point in my last post was that modern y haplogroup frequency, while important and interesting, cannot tell us where a haplogroup originated, and it certainly cannot tell us that a haplogroup that probably first arose in Asia about 18k years ago spent the last 40k years in Europe.

Were it not for recorded history, R1b frequency in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand would support the same sort of argument for those places that is embodied in your statement that, "R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years."

R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years . . .

My major point is that we cannot use current distributions of Haplotypes/groups to tell us points of origin.

Do you see the contradiction in the two statements above?

My point in my last post was that modern y haplogroup frequency, while important and interesting, cannot tell us where a haplogroup originated, and it certainly cannot tell us that a haplogroup that probably first arose in Asia about 18k years ago spent the last 40k years in Europe.

Were it not for recorded history, R1b frequency in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand would support the same sort of argument for those places that is embodied in your statement that, "R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years."

I have to make a slight correction. In the post above, I wrote that R1b is about 18k years old. I felt funny about that when I wrote it. I knew it wasn't quite right. It is actually R1 (M173), the ancestor of R1b, that is about 18k years old.

R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years . . .

My major point is that we cannot use current distributions of Haplotypes/groups to tell us points of origin.

Do you see the contradiction in the two statements above?

My point in my last post was that modern y haplogroup frequency, while important and interesting, cannot tell us where a haplogroup originated, and it certainly cannot tell us that a haplogroup that probably first arose in Asia about 18k years ago spent the last 40k years in Europe.

Were it not for recorded history, R1b frequency in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand would support the same sort of argument for those places that is embodied in your statement that, "R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years."

How do you know R1b originated in Asia? Using the same arithmetic that says my haplotype is less than 2K years old? Something is messing up the arithmetic, maybe its hidden mutations, whatever. I just don't believe we have a solid math basis to say very much about time yet using DNA?

R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years . . .

My major point is that we cannot use current distributions of Haplotypes/groups to tell us points of origin.

Do you see the contradiction in the two statements above?

My point in my last post was that modern y haplogroup frequency, while important and interesting, cannot tell us where a haplogroup originated, and it certainly cannot tell us that a haplogroup that probably first arose in Asia about 18k years ago spent the last 40k years in Europe.

Were it not for recorded history, R1b frequency in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand would support the same sort of argument for those places that is embodied in your statement that, "R1b's presence in Europe is predominant because that is where it has been, off and on, for the last 40k years."

How do you know R1b originated in Asia? Using the same arithmetic that says my haplotype is less than 2K years old? Something is messing up the arithmetic, maybe its hidden mutations, whatever. I just don't believe we have a solid math basis to say very much about time yet using DNA?

I believe R1b originated in Asia based on the known evidence: the SNP trail, the presence of R1b's closest y-dna relatives (the rest of the Super K Family) in Asia, distribution, and haplotype variance. Taken together, it's pretty convincing, at least to me.

I doubt very much that your haplotype, as it currently is, is even 2k years old, if by that you mean you inherited it without any changes from a y-dna ancestor who lived that long ago.

You are correct. I miswrote. It should have been Z253 vice my haplotype. I know for sure, based on an NPE event, that my haplotype is less than 300 years old!

I admit, I believe I can only estimate about 2k years back in time using TMRCA analysis. After that, its a real guessing game. Correlated data sets result in overcounting mutations, multiple steps also increase the number of apparent mutations if you accept that all mutations are single step. The balance point appears to be hidden mutations which are of course uncounted, especially on the slower and middle rate dys loci.

If one didn't know my SNP status, I would be placed in Ht 35 that VV used to manage, my haplotype much more resembles early R-L xx modals.

we are drifting away from the subject material and I apologize, this, at present, is a no-win discussion.

Early studies on classical polymorphisms have largely been vindicated by the growing tome of information on the genetic structure of European populations, with mtDNA, Y-Chromosome and autosomal markers all combining to give a fundamental pattern of migration from the East. The processes behind this pattern are however, less clear, particularly with regard to uniparental markers. Much debate still rages about how best to use Y and mtDNA to date particular historical movements, or indeed if it is appropriate at all. For example, whilst some progress has been made recently in calibrating the mtDNA clock, the selection of a mutation rate with which to date the Y-Chromosome is contentious, as the two most favoured values can give dates that differ by a factor of three. In order to address this we have investigated the sub-lineages of the common European haplogroup R1b-M269. This haplogroup has been shown to be clinal in Europe, and more recently has been posited to be the result of the Neolithic expansion from the Near East.Here, we use newly characterised SNPs downstream of M269 to produce a refined picture of the haplogroup in Europe, and further show that the diversity of this lineage cannot be entirely attributed to Neolithic migration out of Anatolia. We use simple coalescent simulations to estimate an absolute lower bound for the age of the sub-haplogoups. Rather than originating with the farmers from the East, we suggest that the sub-structure of R1b-M269 visible in Europe today, and thus the great majority of European paternal ancestry, is the result of the interaction between the Neolithic wave of expansion and populations of early Europeans already present in the path of the wave.

My only digression would be that R1b-M269 didn't expand with the Neolithic wave, but some of its sub-clades were part of the Indo-European expansion.

PS: We won't find any R1b-M269 in Europe pre-Neolithic, unless we check in the right places. Mainly, check the Baltic states for R-U106, Romania for R1b-L23(xL51), the Western fringes of Frances, and perhaps the Franco Cantabrian region for R-P312. It is also clear to me, that some linages of R1b were Indo-European speaking, others weren't, and others learned the language from their cousins.

I believe the transition from Mesolithic hunter gather to Neolithic farmer happened in or near Gobelki Tepe in Anatolia on the Northern Edge of the Fertile Crescent. This could have been R1b and R1a in close proximity with R1a moving North and East and R1b moving West.The first Neolithic migration out of Anatolia could have been Maritine to Crete and the Greek Islands.Later waves moved through the Balkens and up the Danibe as far as the Iron Gates.The Maritine wave moved as L11* to the Rhone valley and became the Bell Beaker culture. It continued around the Atlantic coast and became P312 in places like Tagus valley, Galicia and Morbihan. it joined forces with its cousins who came by the slower river and overland route.This was not a single migration but several waves continuing in the footsteps of the previous waves overlapping in the Neolithic, Atlantic Megalithic, Copper, Bronze and Iron ages. When the Iron age Celts arrived in Ireland they were following in the footsteps of their Megalithic ancestors in places like Ceide Fields and Carrowmore.

The cover story of the June 2011 National Geographic magazine features the extraordinary archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey. Built some 11,600 years ago, it is revolutionizing theories on the development of agriculture, religion, and civilization.

Who were the people who build this monument. Could they have been R1b-M269 or their ancestors. The Myres study places R1b-M269 in Anotolia at that period. I have plotted the Myres data by Age and Frequency and speculated on the possible migration paths of M269 to his decendants M222.

"At first the Neolithic Revolution was viewed as a single event—a sudden flash of genius—that occurred in a single location, Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now southern Iraq, then spread to India, Europe, and beyond. Most archaeologists believed this sudden blossoming of civilization was driven largely by environmental changes: a gradual warming as the Ice Age ended that allowed some people to begin cultivating plants and herding animals in abundance. The new research suggests that the "revolution" was actually carried out by many hands across a huge area and over thousands of years. And it may have been driven not by the environment but by something else entirely".

"Schmidt speculates that foragers living within a hundred-mile radius of Göbekli Tepe created the temple as a holy place to gather and meet, perhaps bringing gifts and tributes to its priests and crafts­people. Some kind of social organization would have been necessary not only to build it but also to deal with the crowds it attracted".

"Over time, Schmidt believes, the need to acquire sufficient food for those who worked and gathered for ceremonies at Göbekli Tepe may have led to the intensive cultivation of wild cereals and the creation of some of the first domestic strains. Indeed, scientists now believe that one center of agriculture arose in southern Turkey—well within trekking distance of Göbekli Tepe—at exactly the time the temple was at its height. Today the closest known wild ancestors of modern einkorn wheat are found on the slopes of Karaca Dağ, a mountain just 60 miles northeast of Göbekli Tepe. In other words, the turn to agriculture celebrated by V. Gordon Childe may have been the result of a need that runs deep in the human psyche, a hunger that still moves people today to travel the globe in search of awe-inspiring sights".

"Some of the first evidence for plant domestication comes from Nevalı Çori (pronounced nuh-vah-LUH CHO-ree), a settlement in the mountains scarcely 20 miles away. Like Göbekli Tepe, Nevalı Çori came into existence right after the mini ice age, a time archaeologists describe with the unlovely term Pre-pottery Neolithic (PPN)".